Untitled - St.Francis Magazine

St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 2 | April 2012 t. remember exhortation addressed to audience as sons (12:5-­‐6) u. avoid coming short of the goal of obtaining grace of God (12:15) v. avoid to refuse him who is speaking (12:25) w. be grateful (12:28) x. do not neglect, remember (13:2, 3) y. keep your life from (13:5) z. go outside the camp to Him (13:13) As we recall Johnsson’s categories of (1) separation or ‘leaving home’, (2) a journey to a sacred place, (3) a fixed purpose, and (4) hardship and all of these are at play in the book of Hebrews. Very briefly, the pilgrim community addressed frequently as ‘let us’ who have been delivered in an exodus fashion out of the Satanic fear of death (Heb 2:15) are assured by God’s solemn words of promise (10:23) that inspite of their present hardships on this journey, One has already gone to and secured the prize at the sacred place and it is a “better and permanent possession” (10:34), “a great reward” (10:35), the fulfillment of the promise (10:36), and life itself (10:39). This will inspire endurance (12:1, 3, 15–17, 25) as they live in the tension of the “now” and “not yet” while realizing that their liminal position is only temporary. They are enroute to that which by faith they already possess, namely Mount Zion (12:18-­‐24, 26) and the New Jerusalem which is “the city which is to come” (13:14). 115 As pilgrims who “see from afar” the place to which they are moving steadily, they are to fix their focus on the goal which the greatest of all Pilgrims has attained. As Geerhardus Vos 115 The benefits of future salvation or the heavenly Jerusalem which have begun to be realized already in the present is encapsulated by the present tense verb ‘to which you have already come’ [Gk prosérchomai] (Heb 12:18, 22). 251